Deal with the cause.

Josef Breuer (1842 –1925) was an Austrian physician whose works laid the foundation of psychoanalysis. Breuer is perhaps best known for his work with Anna O. (the pseudonym of Bertha Pappenheim), a woman suffering from 'paralysis of her limbs, and anaesthesias, as well as disturbances of vision and speech.

Until Breuer's time, hypnosis had primarily been used for the alleviation of pain in surgery, and according to Liebeault's method, the simple suggesting away of symptoms. However, circa 1880, Breuer made an accidental discovery that changed the methods of hypnotherapy. As a matter of fact, it not only changed the methods of hypnotherapy, but actually introduced an entirely new art in itself as it was Breuer's work which attracted Freud and led him into methods of psychoanalysis which are so common to psychiatrists today.

In any case, Breuer had been treating a patient whom he called Anna O. [Anna O. being the pseudonym used for Bertha Pappenheim, an Austrian-Jewish feminist and the founder of the Jüdischer Frauenbund (League of Jewish Women).] The case is a long and involved one, and is well known to all students of psychiatry. During one portion of therapy, they found however, much to her distress, (and Anna O. was a hysterical patient with many, many different problems) that she could drink no water. In fact, no matter how intense her thirst became, she felt it was a physical impossibility for her to swallow water. Thereupon, she subsisted for a number of months on watery fruits and melons until, during a hypnotic session, she revealed in a fit of anger, how to her great disgust, a former governess had permitted a dog to drink water out of a glass in her presence. As soon as she awoke from the trance she immediately asked Breuer for a drink of water, emptying the glass with ease.

This led Breuer to the realization that the simple recalling of the traumatic experiences from the past of the dog drinking the glass of water was responsible for removing the symptoms. After coming to this conclusion, Breuer then attempted to associate all of the patient's symptoms with traumatic experiences in the past. After working with Anna O. for over a year, Breuer was able to remove her symptoms of blindness, paralysis, deafness, the contracture of her right arm, her anesthesia's, cough, trembling, and all of her other symptoms, merely by repeated trances which revealed more and more of her previous experiences, which contained damaging traumatic incidents.

The importance of Breuer's work lies in the change of emphasis in hypnotic therapy, from the direct removal of symptoms to the dealing with the apparent cause of these symptoms.

Breuer described his final methodology as follows: In the morning he asked Pappenheim under light hypnosis about the occasions and circumstances under which a particular symptom occurred. When he saw her in the evening, these episodes—there were sometimes over 100—were systematically "reeled off" by Pappenheim in reverse temporal order. When she got to the first occurrence and thus to the "cause", the symptoms appeared in an intensified form and then disappeared "forever".

Anna's/Bertha's case also shed light for the first time on the phenomenon called transference, where the patient's feelings toward a significant figure in his/her life are redirected onto the therapist. By transference, Anna imagined to be pregnant with the doctor's baby. She experienced nausea and all the pregnancy symptoms. After this incident, Breuer stopped treating her.

Do we see what we believe?

Joseph Jastrow (1863 - 1944 ) is a psychologist American . He studied at the Johns Hopkins University and became the first American to receive a doctorate in psychology in 1886 . After that he went to the University of Wisconsin and it was there that he introduced the use of hypnosis there around 1889.


Joseph Jastrow is best known for his drawings and his ambiguous optical illusions , illustrating the question "what do you think you see, or do we see what we believe?"



The “duck-rabbit” of Joseph Jastrow, a figure which can be viewed alternatively as a head like a duck or rabbit head.

NOT HYPNOTISM, BUT SUGGESTION

BY HENRY HARRISON BROWN
[1902]

Hypnotism Innocuous This fact understood, away goes the . fear of hypnotism and all belief that one person can hypnotize another to commit crime. This is a groundless fear, a fear that arises in ignorance. The editor of the Suggester and Thinker in an editorial in his magazine, says of this belief in the evil of hypnotism: "It originated in fancy alone and belongs to the age of superstition, darkness and witchcraft and cannot exist today upon any legitimate grounds." Every Suggestion that is repugnant to a person is by him rejected.

H. L. Flint, as well known upon the hypnotic stage as any person in the Mississippi Valley, in a late interview reported in the press, said, in reply to the question as to whether or not a man can be hypnotized to commit crime, "I should say unconditionally, 'No! When under hypnotic influence, the subject's moral sensibilities are more acute than in the normal state and often, when in hypnosis, he cannot be made to do those little peccadillos that he will do when normal. It is correct to say that he will never do anything that he will not do at any other time, as far as his moral nature is concerned.' "

The name is a misnomer. It comes from "hypnosis” meaning sleep. Sleep is not necessary to the phenomena nor to receive benefits from the use. In but few experiments is sleep necessary. Besides, the word carries with it the misconceptions of a false theory. There is no such thing as "hypnotic power" or "hypnotic phenomena." The phenomena occur, but they are not hypnotic. They are not the effect of a power that the operator possesses, but are the effect of the subject's own mind. All the phenomena produced by an "hypnotic" subject are as honest as those produced by him in school, home or workshop and are as natural and normal as those are really identical in origin. The phenomena exist as a part of the daily life of all persons. In a subject, they are artificially reproduced and exaggerated.

Never has a criminal been condemned, or a person acquitted, in this country upon the plea of hypnotism. Never has any judge considered such a plea. I will only cite one typical case. It goes its rounds in the press several times a year. Concerning it, I give as high an authority as exists upon the matter. Chief Justice Albert H. Horton, of the Kansas Supreme Court, in an address reported in the State Journal (Topeka) , for April the 6th, 1895, says: "In affirming the conviction of Gray, no new doctrine was announced, no new rule of evidence established. Hypnotism was not considered nor ruled upon in any way. The reports are therefore wholly unfounded." But Judge Horton's statement is ignored, …


"That hypnotism and its chief handmaiden, Suggestion, have been proven to be an unalloyed blessing to millions of the human race, cannot be successfully controverted." ~ T. J. Hudson